locally called a "shigram," which in shape resembles a palanquin, but is larger, and arranged for sitting instead of reclining. This vehicle may be drawn by horses, but bullocks are often used; these are pretty, clean, creamcoloured animals, much favoured by native Indians, and are commonly used in the morning airings of ladies and children.

There is a pleasant sense of having more breathing room on the table-land of the Deccan than in the crowded little island of Bombay. In Poona the roads are wider; the trees seem to be, though they are not, of more familiar species. Elephants, never permitted on the crowded roads of Bombay, are lumbering along; but the traveller weary with an eight or ten hours' journey in a tropical climate, ceases to observe, and hails with pleasure the kind friends awaiting her at the “bungalow,” which, for the present, ends her journey.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

LAND AND WATER.

ONE of the first things that will probably be noticed on looking at a Terrestrial Globe, is the manner in which Land and Water are distributed over the earth.

The Ocean covers nearly three-fourths of the surface. Land appears in the form either of Continents or Islands.

There are two principal continents: the one comprising Europe, Asia, and Africa, for all these are closely united together; the other, North and South America. The former is often called the Old, the latter the New World. The continent of the Old World is subdivided into three continents.

These continents are both surrounded by water, and so might be called immense islands; but it is convenient to distinguish them as continents.

The rest of the land on the earth is distributed in islands of different shapes and sizes. The largest is Australia. Its area is not very much less than that of the whole of Europe.

The Pacific Ocean is studded with numerous clusters of islands, most of them very small; but some are moderately large. The area of New Zealand, for instance, is greater than that of Great Britain, and that of Borneo more than three times as great.

The land is distributed in different ways in the continents of the Old and the New World. In the Old World its greatest extent is from east to west; in the New World, from north to south.

In both cases this direction corresponds with the principal ranges of Mountains. In the Old World, mountains stretch in one vast chain, with some interruptions, from west to east. These are the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Carpathian Mountains, in Europe; the Caucasus, separating Europe from Asia; the Hindoo Koosh and the Himalaya Mountains, in Asia; and farther north, but in the same direction, the Altai and the Jablonoi Mountains.

The mountains in Africa are the Atlas range, and a great chain which runs across the centre of the continent, from Cape Verde to Abyssinia.

In the New World, there are the vast chain of the Rocky Mountains in North America, and that of the Andes in South America.

There are also other ranges of mountains which determine the shape of various countries: for, as a general rule, the outline of the land follows the direction of the mountains. The peninsula of India follows the direction of the Ghauts, and that of Italy follows the course of the Apennines.

There are also mountains standing apart from others, and not belonging to a range, as Mount Etna in Sicily. These have generally been produced by volcanoes.

The grand central ridge of a range of mountains is called the stem, or axis; the lesser ridges that branch from it are the lateral or side branches; and the smaller ridges which branch from these, the spurs.

These expressions are borrowed from the names of parts of a tree, because ridges branch out from a range of mountains as branches from the trunk of a tree.

Valleys lie between mountains or hills. Principal valleys separate extensive parallel ranges of mountains, such as the Valais, or Valley of the Rhone; lateral valleys are formed by the lateral branches; and subordinate valleys are those formed by spurs, or minor branches.

Plains are level tracts, of which there are many of great extent. The Netherlands, Denmark, the northern districts of France and Germany, a considerable portion of Poland, and nearly the whole of European Russia, form one vast plain, which reaches up to the Ural Mountains. In all this tract of country there are no hills of any height-only a low range of mountains, the Valdai, between Smolensk and Moscow. On the other side of the Ural Mountains there is a still more extensive plain, the Siberian lowland, which occupies nearly the whole of Northern Asia.

The plains in the north-west of Asia and the south of Russia are known by the name of Steppes, which is a Russian word. The steppes contain large tracts of sandy desert interspersed with rich pastures and saltwater lakes and springs.

A great plain extends over the north of Africa. A considerable part of this is the Great Desert, or Sahara -a barren tract of burning sand, 2400 miles long and 900 miles broad. All this desert is uninhabitable, except a few green spots, where there are wells of water, and grass and trees flourish, and which seem all the more lovely on account of the waste which surrounds them. These are called Oases.

In North America there is the vast plain of the Valley of the Mississippi; and there are similar lowlands in South America, called Pampas.

Table-lands are plains of greater or less extent, elevated far above the level of the sea,-such as: that in central Spain, embracing the two Castilles; the region of Central Asia, between the Altai and Himalaya range, including Tibet and the deserts of Cobi and Shamoo (the table-land of Tibet is 15,000 feet above the level of the sea); the table-land of Iran or Persia; the table-land of Mexico; and that of Quito, between the Andes of Peru and Columbia.

From the mountains and hills flow the Rivers, fed by the melting of the snow upon the mountain summit, or by the springs of water in high ground. These collect tributary streams from the sloping lands through which they pass, and at last empty themselves into the ocean. The Rhine and the Rhone both take their rise in the mountains of Switzerland, and flow-the former northward into the German Ocean, the latter southward into the Mediterranean Sea.

Water is also collected together in Lakes, which often have a river passing through them, as the Rhone through the Lake of Geneva. The largest rivers in the world are in America. Among these are, in North America, the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, of which the latter rises in the Rocky Mountains, and passes through a series of immense lakes into the Gulf of St. Lawrence; in South America, the Orinoco and the Amazon, both of which have their rise in the Andes, and empty themselves into the Atlantic Ocean.

Very large lakes are also called Inland Seas. Such is the Caspian Sea, in Asia. Both lakes and inland seas are often salt.

Some seas are connected with the Ocean only by narrow Straits,--such as: the Mediterranean, which communicates with the Atlantic by the Straits of

Gibraltur; and the Black Sea, which is entered from the Mediterranean by the Straits of the Dardanelles.

The Ocean is really all one, but the parts of it between Europe and America are called the Atlantic Ocean, and that between America and Asia the Pacific Ocean. Other portions of it have particular names, as the Indian Ocean, the Yellow Sea, &c.

The line of coast is varied by recesses, called Gulfs and Bays; and by headlands jutting into the sea, called Capes, Promontories, &c.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE CAVE OF ADULLAM.

SOME three or four hours' ride in the wilderness brought us to the Frank Mountain. Unlike any other hill far or near, it rises volcano-like from the desert, and seems to belong to a different formation from the narrow shelving mountain-ridges with which it is girt about on every side. A path, so steep that even our Arab horses slipped and stumbled as they panted up it, wound round the sides of the sugarloaf-shaped cone which crowns the hill; and when at length we reached the summit, there opened out before us one of those views which, once seen, leave an indelible impression upon the memory. The expanse of the wilderness lay stretched at our feet. From the heights on which we stood, the sandy sunburnt hills and valleys looked like the furrows in a mammoth field ploughed by Titans.

There was not a cloud in the sky, but the undulations of the desert cast their dark shadows upon each other, till the countryside bore a resemblance to a huge chessboard, crossed with patches of glaring light and gloomy shade. The domes of Jerusalem and the olivetrees of the Holy Mount stood out distinct and sharp